


Making It Better

by Just_Another_Day



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Brief Violence, Damen Realising the Error of His Ways, Fluff, Gen, Growing Up, Slurs, Sort Of, background politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 07:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18544906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: Damen's sick of all these Veretians saying horrible things about his brother. Unfortunately, when he snaps, it's the youngest Prince of Vere on whom he takes out his ire.





	Making It Better

**Author's Note:**

> This is definitely gen fic, given their ages (I'm picturing Damen as being around the 12 or 13 mark here), but there are vague implications of future Damen/Laurent one day years from now (despite their not-so-ideal start here).

Father's advisors had tentatively tried to suggest that bringing Kastor along with them to the border might not necessarily be the best way to put the Veretians, of all people, into the right mindset for negotiation. It wasn't exactly diplomatic, they claimed, knowing how intense the Veretians were about their peculiar set of values. 

Father had bared his teeth and said, "Precisely." 

Beside Damen, Kastor had barely stifled a low laugh. 

That had been when Damen had realised that Father might actually be hoping this would all come to naught, however counterproductive that seemed to Damen.

"You're only figuring that out now?" Kastor said dismissively when Damen later mentioned his thoughts to his brother. "Father would like nothing more than to have the Veretians be too offended to properly bargain with him. That would just finally give him a 'legitimate' excuse to declare relations with Vere to be a lost cause. And then he can do as he likes without Patras or Vask declaring his actions unfair."

"That doesn't seem…"

"Right? Fair?" Kastor's tone was borderline mocking. "That's how the world works. You'd better learn that quickly if you're hoping to make a half-decent king yourself one day."

Damen hoped to be more than 'half-decent'. And Damen had wondered what his tutors, who were always harping on about how diplomacy was the most important quality that any leader should possess, would have thought of the idea that this was the _real_ way to operate optimally as King. 

But even if he didn't entirely understand it or agree with it, Damen said nothing against it. Father had to know what he was doing, after all. 

And maybe the Veretians even deserved it, Damen came to conclude after the first day they spent in the Veretian fort. Damen couldn't stand how all day long he had to listen to the Veretian nobles talk about the fact that Damen and Kastor didn't share a mother (though their own descriptions of Kastor's circumstances were far more disrespectful than that). It was spoken in slightly-too-loud whispers that Damen would have suspected were meant to be overheard if not for his doubt that they were aware that he spoke their language in the first place.

Hearing them talk about his brother that way, as though Kastor was somehow less than them when actually he outranked them all, grated on Damen _so badly_. But Father had warned him that they'd be horrible, and had said that the worst thing would be to let the Veretians know that they'd managed to get to him at all. So Damen kept pointedly reminding himself to unclench his fists again and again, trying to ignore it, or at least appear as though he didn't hear or care. But the anger boiled up even so, growing worse and worse later into the afternoon.

So it probably shouldn't have been a surprise that eventually his temper would get the better of him. When Damen heard someone just behind him ask, "Are you the Bastard Prince?" so matter-of-factly, Damen snapped. He unthinkingly whirled around with his arm already extended.

His fist impacted a face instead of a stomach as intended, because the person who'd spoken was so much shorter than Damen had expected. Damen couldn't claim that he'd really processed the situation enough to think about it – he wouldn't have swung his fist in the first place if he had, knowing that that could only lead to serious trouble – but if it had occurred to Damen, he would have assumed he would be facing off with an adult. Instead, the boy couldn't have been much older than half of Damen's age. 

Damen remembered the way Hypermenestra used to sternly dress Kastor down, reminding him that he should _never_ hit a child, no matter what (even though Damen didn't like at the time that she was talking like Damen was still just some kind of baby). The guilt set in quickly.

And what was worse, Damen recognised the boy from the official 'welcome' they'd been given on arrival to the fort late yesterday evening. That was the younger Veretian Prince. Laurent, Damen distantly recalled. Damen had just punched a child, who was also second in line for the Veretian throne, in the jaw. 

If Father really wanted an excuse for a breakdown of negotiations, he might have just gotten it. But Damen didn't think this was how he would like it to play out at all.

Laurent's pale eyes started filling. A salty line trailed down the plump curve of his cheek. Damen didn't think he'd hit him anywhere near hard enough to actually make someone cry, even someone Laurent's age; it had been more a reflexive flail of his hand than a proper punch. Laurent's reaction was probably more from shock than pain, Damen figured. But that didn't make Laurent's tears any less real.

"Sorry," Damen said gruffly in Veretian. 

The sniffling continued unabated.

"I said I'm sorry," Damen repeated.

Still no response except the continued flow of tears.

Damen sighed and ducked down far enough that he could press a quick peck over the reddened skin of Laurent's jaw where he'd hit the boy. That stopped Laurent's crying dead.

"What did you do _that_ for?" Laurent asked, sounding affronted.

"I kissed it to make it better. Now you don't have to cry anymore."

"That isn't a real thing. You can't just do that and everything's fine again. Maybe people are stupid enough to believe that in Akielos, but not here. So keep your barbarian magic away from me."

Damen frowned. "You know, we wouldn't have had a problem if you didn't call us things like stupid and barbarians and refer to my brother like that."

"Oh," said Laurent. "So it's the _other_ one who's the bastard."

Damen gritted his teeth. "Don't call him that." 

"Why not?" Laurent asked.

Part of Damen really wanted to lash out again, though this time he would have restrained himself to words alone. Like Hypermenestra would have said, there was _no_ justification for hitting someone so much younger than him, who couldn't really be expected to fight back. Damen wouldn't do it knowingly. It was only the fact that Laurent sounded genuinely curious rather than taunting that stopped Damen from verbally snapping at him, though. Maybe Laurent was just young enough that he actually didn't understand? Damen didn't meet many kids, and he honestly couldn't remember what he'd been like at the same age. Nikandros would doubtless have said he was an idiot. It was hard to be sure when it felt like _so long_ ago. So Damen supposed he could give Laurent the benefit of the doubt. For now.

"It's not nice," Damen tried to explain in terms that a young boy would understand.

"But it's just a description of what he is," Laurent insisted. 

"It's a word that's meant to put him down. How would you like it if someone said something that was cruel about _your_ brother, even if it was technically true?" Damen asked.

Laurent seemed to think that over for a moment, then said, "I'd want to punch them." 

There was a moment of understanding between them that Damen thought might be an indication of forgiveness for hurting Laurent like that.

Then Laurent added, "But I'm not very good at punching. So I'd probably hit them with one of my heaviest books instead. Or tell Mother what they'd said; she'd make them _wish_ they'd been lucky enough to get away with a single hit."

Damen made a mental note to steer clear of Queen Hennike. Especially since he might have just visibly bruised her youngest child's face, giving her reason to want some vengeance.

"I'm sorry I hit you," Damen repeated, less grudgingly this time. It wasn't _entirely_ to try to ensure that Laurent was satisfied enough that he wouldn't run to his mother to complain about Damen, but that thought did admittedly cross his mind.

Laurent shrugged. "Whatever. It barely even hurt," he said, obviously trying to sound brave, as if the tears weren't still drying against his skin. 

"Still. I won't do it again. But you shouldn't call my brother that again, either. Or call Akielons 'barbarians'. We have names. He's Kastor. I'm Damen. Use those instead."

"Well then you shouldn't do that other thing anymore either!"

"What other thing?" Damen asked, confused.

Laurent waved his hand demonstratively at his own face, which had turned red all over now, not just around where Damen had hit him. Laurent was blushing, Damen realised. "Slobbering all over my face without warning," Laurent explained.

Oh. "The kiss, you mean?"

Laurent pulled a face, making it clear that that was exactly what he'd meant.

"Fine. Not like I was planning on ever kissing you again," Damen agreed. 

"Good. Who would want to be kissed by you?"

More than a few people, actually. Though Laurent was probably too young to hear about that, Damen would guess. So Damen just shrugged.

Apparently deciding that he was happy to continue talking to Damen even now that that was all worked out, Laurent commented, "You speak surprisingly good Veretian. Father said Akielons aren't smart enough to talk in our language."

Damen suddenly understood exactly why Laurent hadn't seemed to think there was anything wrong with name-calling, if he was the type of child he just repeated what his father (and presumably the other Veretians around him, from what Damen had overheard) said.

Damen supposed he did the same thing, to a point. But his father was actually _right_ , so it was different.

Damen would bet that he could teach Laurent a lot about the way things _really_ were. They were going to be in Vere for over a week, and Damen was already getting the feeling that he wasn't going to be invited into a lot of the meetings. It was as though they thought that he – like Laurent – was too young to really understand or have a proper say in most of what was being debated here. Damen probably would have protested against that more if he'd still thought that Father expected a serious result from this, but as it was, there seemed to be little point in raising a fuss about it. That meant that he was going to be left at loose ends for a large portion of the day. He might as well put his time to good use. 

"I could teach you some Akielon, if you liked," Damen offered. He could teach Laurent foul-languaged insults that the boy could unknowingly go address at those courtiers who'd been talking about Kastor earlier, Damen thought smugly. That would almost make the whole day of repressed annoyance worth it.

"And I could teach you how to use the proper accent," Laurent replied. 

Damen thought his Veretian accent was, fine, thanks. His tutors might have disagreed, but he'd been hard working on it! Still, Damen sighed and resigned to the unfair aspersions against his language skills. Better than going back to wandering around alone and listening to the courtiers talk among themselves. Laurent didn't seem so bad in general, now that Damen knew that he might actually listen when Damen told him he was being too 'Veretian' (though Damen supposed he would probably do better not to actually phrase it that way). 

Maybe Damen might even surprise himself by enjoying hanging out with him.

**Author's Note:**

> Meanwhile, you just know that little Laurent is like 'I guess this fool might not be so bad to be around if I can teach him to stop acting so Akielon all the time'. These dummies are so perfect for each other at any age. XD
> 
> Also, I'm aware that the likelihood that Theomedes would agree to all three royals of Akielos going into Veretian territory like this is basically nil. But it's just supposed to be a fun throwaway AU, so oh well. (And on the point of this just being fun, please note that I don't approve of Damen throwing fists like that, especially not when he hits a literal ~~devil~~ angel child. He better check himself.)


End file.
